One such idiotic moment occurred on our 2017-2018 stay in Bright over the Christmas break. This is an annual family holiday, broken in 2016-2017 by our trip to the USA. We had missed the tranquil setting of our cabin in the Riverview Caravan Park, through which the Buckland river flows, and we missed the river itself.
The water hole is a daily activity, usually in the morning when it is quiet and peaceful and quite often, ours alone to enjoy with the happy sounds of birds and the calming flow of water. The first toe dipped into the water effects a stifled scream as the icy temperature, straight from the mountains, makes the nipples pop and the balls retreat, irrespective of the 30•C temperature outside. Within minutes though, you're up to your thighs and gathering the intestinal fortitude to dip the nether regions and get the shock over with. Not so Boy Wonder; bolstered by the bravery of youth, he climbs the rocks and leaps off into the icy depths, emerging like a bullet from a smoking gun, gasping and grinning with the crazy only a teen can produce.
The same water hole in the afternoon can be a seething mass of loud and obnoxious teenagers, leaping off the rocks doing bombs, laughing loudly and showing off with backward somersaults to impress the fairer sex and make all mum's in the region dig their nails into their palms and clench in fear; we're born worriers, irrespective of who owns the kid. The fathers are busy sucking in their beer guts and openly admiring the tight arses and firm titties of the girls, whistfully missing their lost youth. Get your hand off it, tossers!
As this same river flows through our Caravan Park, most people use the water hole as a launching point to ride the river rapids. I did attempt this river run many years ago, after torrential rain had the river swollen and flowing at great speed; hiding the rocks and other dangers from the inexperienced and the stupid...yes, me. As a rookie, I relied on the advice of the experienced; The Captain (who calls himself the coach but leapt into the river and left me to my own defences...nice coaching) and my children. I was advised at the time by Boy Wonder and Miss Marvellous to dodge the giant boulder, the biggest threat in the water, but since I'd never attempted this activity, I didn't know what to dodge or where this giant obstruction lurked and the fast pace and swell of the river hid such dangers. I hit said bolder with my knees at great speed, launching into the air comically, to the delight of the Captain. Re-entry had been difficult given my accident, which put a dent in my confidence, but I made it back alive. Amazingly, I attempted this run two more times, each one eventuating in some mishap (one of which was completely my fault as I'd launched into the water on a blow up lilo-mattress with a separate pillow that belted me half to death about the head and nearly smacked my glasses off, then rammed the nose pieces into my eyes. Who does this shit?) All attempts left me battered and bruised and lacking in any confidence whatsoever. "Nope, never again", I said. Never turned out to be only a few short years away.
So this year, I watched little children leap onto blow-up mats with abandon and float away with confidence and I thought "the river is calm, I can see the rocks...how hard can it be?" Enter inappropriate bravado of middle aged, unskilled, spastic, uncoordinated and awkward idiot. I proposed this ridiculous idea to Boy Wonder and he pollitely asked if I was sure. His tone did not hide the wariness borne out of experience with me attempting this activity in the past. Of course I am sure, I can do this! No I can't.
I mounted the blow up mat in the shallows so I wouldn't embarrass myself bouncing off the thing and landing on my arse. Bear in mind, this river bed is all rocks and the rapid water flow is directed between boulders. My son gave me directions, before we set out, to follow his lead and stay calm. These directions went in one ear and straight out the other as I came off on the first rapid as the mat flipped. Boy Wonder patiently helped me back into the raft and I celebrated making it through the second rapid and dodging the giant boulder. He was shocked and surprised when I came off on the benign third rapid and watched as I floundered and guzzled copious amounts of river water. I didn't hurt myself (other than to dent my pride) and was very pleased when we made it to the slow pace after the rapids and lazily drifted into the Caravan Park.
Imagine his surprise when I said I wanted another go. His face was incredulous because, come on, my track record to this point was absolutely shit! I thought that now I knew the dangers (and if made it past that fucking boulder once...), surely I can get it right this time. The look of incredulous disbelief was only momentary, but warranted. I fucked up badly.
When we arrived, teenagers were everywhere at the water hole, a harbinger of doom as I hastily launched myself after Boy Wonder, who was eager to get this over with. Badly positioned on the air mat to start with, I barely made it through the first rapid when the second rapid launched me half up and I failed to rebalance, flipping upside down. This was bad, I was suddenly bereft of glasses (which I somehow managed to grasp in the turmoil), and as it was deep, I was still trying to cling to the raft as it belted me on the head and held me under water. Trying not to panic as it threw me around in the middle of the rapid, I tenaciously clawed my way up and inhaled in a huge lungful of water, then half killed myself trying to get my head above the water level, gasping and making goat noises whenever I managed to surface and suck in air. I was thrown hard against a pointy boulder and bounced solidly on my coccyx, belting my shin on the fucking boulder I was trying to avoid. Floundering, gasping and burping water bubbles, my head broke free to hear Boy Wonder screaming "Stay Calm, just bloody stay calm". I had the wherewithal to belch "I am calm" at him, but with my voice altered by water intake and lack of oxygen, I sounded like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon.
"Come over here!" he yelled (Danny Glover? Still caught in Lethal Weapon). I refrained from telling him to fuck off, concentrating instead on breathing, climbing to safety and gathering my shattered wits.
As I was still gasping and trying to climb back onto the raft, executing the vertical splits as I righted myself, some bloke floating behind us yells out "hey, where do you get off this thing?" Mate, I can barely fucking breath, can you piss off? Boy Wonder glared at the guy, like he could make his head explode with his laser vision...not now, dude! I yelled back "this ends in a Caravan Park, but you can get off under the bridge!" He exclaimed, "SHIT!" and then we ignored his arse because my air mat had turned around and I was going backwards and we were approaching the third rapid. Boy Wonder was yelling at me to turn around and I was splashing, frantically paddling, trying to turn my mat before...ah for fuck's sake, not again! The last thing I saw was the quizzical expression of the guy in the tube before getting tossed off the mat again at the benign and most uncomplicated and unchallenging of all the rapids, which had my son shaking his head in disbelief. His opinion of my ability to function at a normal level of competency had plummeted to rock bottom and although he didn't say so, his expression screamed it at a thousand decibels. I just wanted everything and everyone to fuck off so I could flop like a flaccid dick across this air mat and catch my breath.
As we drifted into the slow lazy pace, I told Boy Wonder that I'd seriously hurt myself in the butt and he advised that I should not attempt this again and perhaps I should join him from now on under the bridge and after the rapids. This is the point I became unhinged and started laughing hysterically. My nose was still burning from the water shooting through it but hey, my sinuses were clear. My tailbone was throbbing and my spine was tingling from the jarring encounter with the rock that arse-fucked me when I was at my most vulnerable.
I asked why he was screaming at me stay calm, which he flat out denied had happened. I suspect at the time he was trying to contain his terror as he watched his mother bounce around and drown audibly. I should learn to die quietly. He said that everything happens for a reason and baby Jesus doesn't want me to ride the rapids.
We returned to the cabin to be greeted by a grinning Captain Fantastic, who had seen the whole thing from the road above. Jesus! I asked if he'd heard Boy Wonder shouting at me to stay calm and he said "yes, that's how I knew you were there." Boy Wonder is still shaking his head in denial - he needs to calm the fuck down in a crisis but the poor kid held it together surprisingly well considering the fuckwit thrashing about in the water with him.
The following day I found it was painful to walk and I wondered if I'd actually cracked my tail bone or smacked the fucker right off. Grimacing and groaning, getting up from a sitting position or sitting down made me cry out (my pain threshold having all but disappeared) and I was beginning to sound like the giant bulls in the paddock adjacent to the caravan park. Any form of walking was agony; inclines and declines the most painful of all. We wondered aloud at the fate of that bloke behind us. "Poor guy," said Boy Wonder, "I hope he got out alright". Nah, fuck him, I thought as I struggled to get off my chair without bovine bellowing, he saw me fuck-up on the unfuck-upable rapid - we can never see that guy again...if we do, we have to kill him.
Boy Wonder was chivalrous and helpful, holding out his hand to help me get up or sit...or just walk. He thought it was an insight into my future as he joked that I'm like a 90 year old, like he's assisting a stroke victim. He certainly felt like he was watching me pitch some sort of fit in the river that day. He gleefully tells me over lunch today that I'm retarded and he's never heard of anyone coming off on the third rapid, and that he can't wait to tell Miss Marvellous (who didn't join us on holidays this year) so they can laugh about it. His dad chimed in and said it's actually impossible to come off on the third. "No it's not", I rejoined defensively, "because I came off!" and he counters "Jeez, it's a wonder you can put one foot in front of the other". Fuck off, Captain, you're a shit coach.
